attention DIRT: need to replace my Hopper with Sling

[Jim S.]

I just had a hard drive failure for the second time this year, so I called Dish's phone support and talked to some guy with an accent I could hardly understand. I started off straight up telling him I needed a replacement receiver because I had a bad hard drive. He asked me what the problem was, and I told him that I got the message about needing to reformat the drive. He wanted to know what the error code was, and I said I didn't remember. He wanted to know what message I had on the screen, and I said I didn't have any message because I already reformatted it. So then he said that in order for him to help, I had to wait til I got the message again and call back. I told him that I'm not dealing with that, or him, and hung up!

So, I need somebody to PM me so we can set up a receiver exchange.

 

[MikeL DISH]

I'm sorry you feel that way about the customer support provided as it certainly isn't ever our intention to seem unhelpful. The specific error message and/or number code simply helps us to pinpoint what the issue is and what's causing it to happen. That way, we can help you troubleshoot it properly for the optimal chance of it not reoccurring for you. I'd be happy to discuss this further with you if you could please PM your account number and four-digit PIN so I can review any options.

 

[KAB]

I'm sorry you feel that way about the customer support provided as it certainly isn't ever our intention to seem unhelpful. The specific error message and/or number code simply helps us to pinpoint what the issue is and what's causing it to happen. That way, we can help you troubleshoot it properly for the optimal chance of it not reoccurring for you. I'd be happy to discuss this further with you if you could please PM your account number and four-digit PIN so I can review any options.

Mike, if you are a Dirt member, why do you not log on as such? Your credibility is coming under question from another thread.

 

[dwarren2]

Strange. When I click on his name, the profile comes up with his name in Red.

 

[KAB]

He finally did whatever he had to do to conform to the new software update, as per Scott.

 

[Bobby]

Actually Scott did it....

 

[Hall]

The phone rep came simply take a caller's word that they need a replacement. I'm guessing that reformatting can "fix" the problem in many cases. It doesn't mean the HDD is done, it may just have bad sectors that reformatting will mark to not use.

 

[lparsons21]

The phone rep came simply take a caller's word that they need a replacement. I'm guessing that reformatting can "fix" the problem in many cases. It doesn't mean the HDD is done, it may just have bad sectors that reformatting will mark to not use.

While reformatting may 'fix' the problem, it really is not a fix at all. Just a temporary Band-Aid for a failing drive.

Yeah I know, back in the day it wasn't uncommon to have to reformat a drive for various reasons, but these days I cannot remember the last time I reformatted to fix a drive, only to change OS's or to get a virgin install 'cause of the problems that are usually caused by the user.

 

[Hall]

While reformatting may 'fix' the problem, it really is not a fix at all. Just a temporary Band-Aid for a failing drive.

Why does Dish do it then ? Instead of throwing up the reformat-the-drive message, they might as well throw the HDD-failed code.

Plus, I've seen users here that have had to reformat like this and they seemed to be fine afterwards. If it failed days or even a couple of weeks later, I'd certainly consider it related. If it lasts another 6 months or longer, I'd call that a reasonable fix.

 

[lparsons21]

Why does Dish do it then ? Instead of throwing up the reformat-the-drive message, they might as well throw the HDD-failed code.

Plus, I've seen users here that have had to reformat like this and they seemed to be fine afterwards. If it failed days or even a couple of weeks later, I'd certainly consider it related. If it lasts another 6 months or longer, I'd call that a reasonable fix.

Why does Dish do it? Because if they can keep that unit in the field longer it saves them money.

And when you format it and lose all your recordings and then a few months later get to do it again, you might be a little more peeved than you were when you lost them the first time.

 

[Hall]

Yeap, that's a perfectly valid reason that they may do it, to buy time....

 

[Jim S.]

Yes, I'm certainly peeved about losing all my recordings for the second time in 5 months!

If a drive has a minor fault, formatting should mark all the bad sectors as out-of-bounds. If it has a major fault, formatting should fail. It's almost as if Dish is choosing to scan for errors but NOT fix them. After all, if they can detect non-catastrophic failures, why don't they recover all the files except the ones stored in the failed areas?! Only once, in owning computers my entire adult life, including building most of them myself, including using consumer-grade drives in 24/7/365 applications, have I had a drive failure that I couldn't recover >99% of my files from by acting as soon as I discovered an error. Dish, on the other hand, apparently checks the drives every night, but doesn't do anything other than reformat them. (What does DirecTV do about drive errors? Anybody know? PM me to avoid derailing this thread, please!)

 

[navychop]

EHD.

Pick high quality. Maybe RAID.

 

[KKlare]

I had an HDD failure with reformatting forced on me. This was followed a day or two later by a repeat failure.
What a disaster. I had recordings stored for years and was moving them to another EHD so the drive was full.
Some I have replaced but many may never show up again. The problem was that these recordings had gone to
an EHD and back to main drive but they would not go to a new drive. Dish did send a "new" recorder.
Sure wish there was at least a partial recovery allowed as Jim S suggests above.
-Ken

 

[SomeDishGuy]

Users of this board tend to be more smart and aware of their systems, but I hope folks can understand why a Dish agent can't go with a generic customer comment about "I need a new receiver, my hard drive has failed" where the customer then gives no concrete information to the agent about error codes or messages. I've had customers call and swear to me (and at me) that their receiver was bad...but when probed, they had a black screen due to being on the wrong input. A new receiver would have done nothing for them. And again...users here are more aware, but there's no special tag on a customer's account that THIS customer really knows what they're talking about.

 

[Skytrooper]

I had the bedroom Hopper fail a few months ago. It would randomly turn off and on and the wife lost all her recordings. I had no troubles with customer service and they even gave me 3 months of Cinemax.

By the time the new Hopper came, it began to work fine again, but the recordings were still gone. As the OP stated, he had two fail in a short period of time. It kinda makes me wonder what Dish did with mine. Did they find the problem or just send it to someone else?

 

[bigjohnok]

if you have a hardrive that has bad sectors it means its failing either mechanically or due to software issues. now whether you get a couple days/weeks or months worth of use out of it is a gamble.

 

[Hall]

It kinda makes me wonder what Dish did with mine. Did they find the problem or just send it to someone else?

If a DVR is returned with anything related to the HDD as being the problem, I would really, really hope that Dish takes zero chances and pulls the HDD, tosses it, and puts in a new one. That's a perfectly valid reason why support asks what error code you see.

 

[ChadT41]

If a DVR is returned with anything related to the HDD as being the problem, I would really, really hope that Dish takes zero chances and pulls the HDD, tosses it, and puts in a new one. That's a perfectly valid reason why support asks what error code you see.

That's exactly what they do. And then they run it through their 'SMART' system(don't get me started, it is effective ENOUGH, but inaccurate when judging agents on a metric system, and fixes any found errors. Each receiver is ran hard for 4 hours in tests.

 

[Skytrooper]

That's exactly what they do. And then they run it through their 'SMART' system(don't get me started, it is effective ENOUGH, but inaccurate when judging agents on a metric system, and fixes any found errors. Each receiver is ran hard for 4 hours in tests.

As I stated earlier, my Hopper began to function normally while waiting for the new one to arrive. How do you you troubleshoot a problem like that?